To attract new members and raise money for the club, the University’s fencing club hosted Bunny Fencing to get students active.
“The idea to call the event ‘bunny fencing’ is that it makes everyone question ‘wait what is that?’” Junior and Communications Relations Director of the Fencing Club April Bryant said. “It’s the first thought so it draws people in and they want to attend the event to see if bunnies are actually fencing!”
The event took place outside of Eppler, and while the event had no bunnies fencing each other, guests could suit up and fence their friends or a member of the fencing club to pop the balloon ears off their opponent’s mask. Raffle tickets were sold for $1 at the event to fence and be entered into a drawing that will take place at one of the practices soon after the event.
“If we were to do an event where it was just straight up fencing, we would literally have to explain the basics to everybody, so making it bunny fencing where they are just popping ears, is much easier to take it out to the public,” Bryant said. “And if people are really interested they can come out to our practices to learn more.”
Fencing uses three different weapons. One is a sabre, which is a light cutting and slashing weapon with the target area being the entire body above the waist. The épée and foil are thrusting swords with the target area being the torso (including the back), neck and groin for the foil and the entire body for the épée.
“It’s a huge cardio workout with a lot of stretching, foot work and building stamina,” sophomore member Nick Jellison said.
The event allowed people to get in a good workout and have members of the fencing club teach people how to suit up and duel against each other with the sabre.
“For this event we have opponents using a sabre to pop the balloons off the mask because it is more of a slashing technique to it, which makes it easier for people to pop the balloons off the masks,” Senior and President of the fencing club Elizabeth Kauppila said.
The reason for the event is to attract people to fencing and hopefully increase the membership of the club.
“We need members, and we’ve always wanted to invite more people and having an event outside and getting it to the public because a lot of people I talk to don’t know about the fencing club and are excited to learn and participate,” Bryant said.
Because the club is not well funded, money raised at the event will go to the club for new equipment, gear and tournament funds.
“We go to many tournaments throughout the year, we have been to the Case Western Reserve Duels, Xavier Duels and OSU Duaes,” Kauppila said. “We really don’t focus on the competition; we are there to have fun and get in a good workout.”
Membership is open to all BGSU students and members of the community who are at least 18 years old. Members are entitled to use the club’s equipment such as helmet, jacket, gloves, weapons, etc. The fencing club’s next practice will be held on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. in the Eppler Center 102.
